£1.25bn support package for innovative firms hit by coronavirus...
UK businesses driving innovation and development will be helped through the coronavirus outbreak with a £1.25 billion government support package, the Chancellor announced on 20th April 2020.
Rishi Sunak said the targeted and tailored help would ensure firms in some of the most dynamic sectors of the UK economy – ranging from tech to life sciences – are protected through the crisis so they can continue to develop innovative new products and help power UK growth.
The comprehensive package includes a new £500 million loan scheme for high-growth firms, called the Future Fund, and £750 million of targeted support for small and medium sized businesses focusing on research and development.
The £500 million Future Fund has been designed to ensure high-growth companies across the UK receive the investment they need to continue during the crisis.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak, said:
"Britain is a global leader when it comes to innovation. Our start-ups and businesses driving research and development are one of our great economic strengths, and will help power our growth out of the coronavirus crisis. ...This new, world-leading fund will mean they can access the capital they need at this difficult time, ensuring dynamic, fast-growing firms across all sectors will be able to continue to create new ideas and spread prosperity."
Delivered in partnership with the British Business Bank and launching in May, the fund will provide UK-based companies with between £125,000 and £5 million from the government, with private investors at least matching the government commitment. These loans will automatically convert into equity on the company’s next qualifying funding round, or at the end of the loan if they are not repaid. To be eligible, a business must be an unlisted UK registered company that has previously raised at least £250,000 in equity investment from third party investors in the last five years.
The government is committing an initial £250 million in funding towards the scheme, which will initially be open until the end of September. The scale of the fund will be kept under review.
The £750 million of targeted support for the most R&D intensive small and medium size firms will be available through Innovate UK’s grants and loan scheme.
Innovate UK, the national innovation agency, will accelerate up to £200 million of grant and loan payments for its 2,500 existing Innovate UK customers on an opt-in basis. An extra £550 million will also be made available to increase support for existing customers and £175,000 of support will be offered to around 1,200 firms not currently in receipt of Innovate UK funding. The first payments will be made by mid-May.
This package builds on the government’s existing support for innovative, high-growth firms including the £2.5 billion British Patient Capital fund, the upcoming £200 million Life Sciences Investment Programme, internationally competitive R&D tax reliefs and our major commitments to increase public R&D spending to £22 billion by 2024-25.
Arrivederci Matteo...
After two and a half years at RedKnight, we were sad to bid farewell to Matteo Radice at the end of February. Matteo joined us in July 2017 as Project Manager for the €2.37m Horizon 2020 Fast Track to Innovation project, BREATHSPEC, which RedKnight helped secure. The project recently came to a successful conclusion and with that Matteo decided the time was right for him to return to his native Milan and pursue his next adventure.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank Matteo for all his hard work and commitment during his time at RedKnight and we wish him all the best with his future endeavours
Increase in funding for game-changing green innovation and woman-led companies…
A significant increase to the European Innovation Council (EIC) Pilot budget is expected to be adopted by the European Commission in March 2020, to support game-changing, market-creating innovation and deep-tech SMEs to scale-up, paving the ground for the launch of a ‘fully-fledged’ programme in Horizon Europe (2021 – 2027).
A one-off EIC Accelerator call for ‘green deal’ start-ups and SMEs is expected, whereby all applicants submitting for the 19th May 2020 cut-off will need to demonstrate how their innovation contributes to the goals of The European Green Deal. The 7th October 2020 cut-off for the EIC Accelerator Pilot will remain open to all innovations.
Additional opportunities for companies with women CEOs (or equivalent positions) is also expected, to ensure 25% of all finalists in the EIC Accelerator Pilot are women-led companies. If, following the first-round remote evaluation, a minimum of 25% of companies selected for the final-stage interviews are not led by women, additional interviews will be scheduled.
An advanced version of the amended EIC Work Programme is due to be released by the end of February, and the final version by the end of March, replacing plans for the year ahead in the current EIC Pilot Work Programme 2018 - 2020.
Important EIC Accelerator update for UK applicants...
The Withdrawal Agreement means that the UK can continue to participate in EU programmes, including Horizon 2020, that are financed by the 2014-2020 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) until their closure (i.e. for the lifetime of grants). UK participants will continue to receive EU grant funding for the lifetime of individual Horizon 2020 projects, including projects finishing after the transition period ends at the end of 2020.
UK scientists, researchers and businesses can continue to participate in and lead Horizon 2020 projects and apply for Horizon 2020 grant funding. The vast majority of Horizon 2020 projects will be able to continue as before during the transition period and beyond. This includes ERC, MSCA, and the EIC Accelerator. However, for the latter, UK entities are now only eligible for the grant element of the programme, meaning they cannot apply for equity support.
A very limited number of UK Horizon 2020 projects, which involve access to security-related sensitive information restricted for EU Member States, may be unable to continue after EU Exit in their current form. The government expects the European Commission to inform participants if this is the case.
Special Report on the SME Instrument
As the SME Instrument has been redesigned into the European Innovation Council (EIC) Accelerator Pilot for 2021-2027, the European Court of Auditors was called upon creating a report in which the European auditors assessed whether this instrument has effectively supported innovation by SMEs; whether it has targeted the right type of SMEs; if it achieved wide geographic coverage; if the selection process and Commission support were effective, and if the Commission adequately monitored and followed up the instrument, in order to make improvements.
Overall, the special report concluded that the SME Instrument provides effective assistance to SMEs in developing their innovation projects and that having the EU branding helps companies to attract additional investment; however, the auditors also pointed out that the programme has shown a few short comings that, if assessed properly, would have been able to enhance the SME Instrument efficacy even further.
First of all, the frequent changes in the objectives and target groups have caused great confusion over the course of the programme and the late adaptation to the type of applicants (who progressively moved to a younger SMEs' audience) have slowed down the growth of the SME Instrument. Also, heavily relying upon local stakeholders (NCP; EEN) to promote the SME Instrument has proved to be an ineffective strategy and seriously lowered the otherwise enormous reach of the programme. In this regard, the report goes on remarking the fact that, whilst the impact of NCPs varied greatly between the Member States, scarce support from the Commission; no budget allocation to sustain dissemination activities and overlapping duties have been reported as the main causes for such shortcoming. Finally, other important matters such as failures in the online submission system; shortage of expert reviewers and no differentiation between resubmitted and new proposals have been highlighted as challenges to tackle in order to improve the impact of the SME Instrument
In conclusion, the Special Report provides a thorough list of recommendations that should be implement buy the start of the next Framework Programme, which include:
1.) Improve marketing and communication strategy from National Contact Points and the Enterprise Europe Network to SMEs by promoting peer-learning projects and the exchange of best practice and ensuring that targeted support to the network of National Contact Points for SMEs is operational at the beginning of Horizon Europe, in order to better raise awareness amongst SMEs.
2.) Provide remote evaluators with additional time to conduct their work by setting up a two-way information channel between remote evaluators and jury members to allow better access to the evaluation and provide with feedback on its quality;
3.) Develop purpose-built IT tools to reliably manage the submission and resubmission process, which should be kept separated and, especially with regards to the resubmission, limited, thus freeing up resources which are currently used to re-perform evaluations of the same proposal in multiple successive cut-offs;
4.) Collaborate with Member States and national promotional institutions to promote and advice on nationally backed financial scheme, similar to Phase 1, that might meet the financial needs of the SME-I beneficiaries.
Full version of the report and its recommendations is available here.
Source: https://www.eca.europa.eu/en/Pages/DocItem.aspx?did=52862
Keep Calm and Carry On
After three and a half years since the "gamble of the Century", the UK Government has finally delivered Brexit and the UK's departure from the EU will become definite at the end of this year. This poses some important questions. What of all the European funding programmes the UK has so successfully taken part in? What of its participation in Horizon 2020? Will the UK participate in Horizon Europe?
In response to these question that have been worrying researchers, scientists and industry, both home and abroad, the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) department has released a statement where it urges UK entities to "continue to participate in, bid for and lead projects in the European Union’s (EU) flagship programme Horizon 2020, as if the UK remained a Member State, even after the UK exits the EU on 31 January 2020."
This continued participation, at least for the remainder of 2020, is indeed great news for the UK's national framework which is the second highest recipient of Horizon 2020 funding for science and innovation. On top of that, the transition period, which started on 1st February 2020 will guarantee that researchers and businesses can continue to participate in ALL programmes financed by the 2014-2020 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) and receive EU grant funding for the lifetime of individual projects, including projects finishing after the transition period ends in 2020.
So, does this mean that it is going to be "business as usual" until the end of the year? On the whole, yes it does; however, we do still recommend if you double check the eligibility criteria for any programme you are considering applying to as a very limited number of Horizon 2020 programmes, which involve access to security-related sensitive information restricted for EU Member States, may be restricted to UK applicants and experience relevant changes in those cases where the project has already started. In this regard, we strongly advise to wait for formal communication from the European Commission or, in case of urgency, to contact directly [email protected].
RedKnight's priority remains to assist UK researchers and business to access the best available opportunity for their projects, continuing to invest in our capabilities to secure EU funding, whilst expanding our portfolio to provide our clients with the best possible environment for international collaboration.
For more information on our services, please visit www.redknightconsultancy.co.uk or contact us at [email protected].
UK access to EU funding secured during transition period
Will UK entities be able to apply for Horizon 2020 funding during the transition period? This has certainly become one of our most FAQs since the December vote to agree the withdrawal agreement.
We are still awaiting official confirmation from the UK Government at this point, but expect that guidance will be updated in the next week or so.
Essentially, if the withdrawal agreement is voted through, it means the UK move into the transition period during which it will continue to contribute to the EU budget and therefore remain in EU programmes (as if a member state). This means UK entities CAN STILL APPLY as they did before and the EU will pay out the grant as currently the case.
So It should be ok to continue to submit bids to the Horizon 2020 programme, but clearly this is dependent on the withdrawal agreement being ratified.